Author: admin

Word Press is the most user-friendly and SEO-friendly platform and therefore the easiest way to create a website, for the startups. This is the most common statement you hear, when you plan to enter the world of online business.

You feel that just writing a few blogs will rank you in the SERP. Just ask yourself once “Can beating the competition of millions of website be an overnight journey?” Absolutely not!

Just choosing a wordpress theme will not help your website get high rankings in the search engine. Although it provides an excellent platform for customizing the content and elements as per SEO guidelines, you still need expertise to get it done properly.

If you follow these directions properly, then you can explore the full potential of Word Press.

Generate SEO friendly URL For Each Post

When you enter a query on a search engine, what type of result would you prefer to click?

Something like

Example.com/wpsh?-iy (this is automatically generated )

Or something like

Example.com/complete-guide –SEO

Of course, the second one looks more attracting and therefore it’s more SEO friendly too. Basically SEO friendly is in a way relevant to user-friendliness because the search engine reflects results based on user engagement and interaction as well.

With slight modifications in the settings, you can change the URL as per requirement.

Got to your Dashboard>Settings>Permalink

Now check the post name and save changes.

This way you will be able to create the URL according to the targeted keywords. It will not only make your posts presentable but also SEO friendly.

Whenever you create a new post you can create a custom URL for it. This will also help in targeting the page properly.

2. Optimizing the Meta Titles and Description

When you enter a query in the Google search bar, Most of the results you get have 3 things in common – a blue link called Meta Title, a green link called URL or the Landing Page and Meta Description.

You must change the title (70 characters) and the description (100 characters per line, up to 2 to 3 lines); so that it becomes easy for people to understand what they will get by clicking on the landing page URL. Creating Meta title and description using Keywords will help Google crawl your website better and thus rank better.

\

Make it a habit of writing proper Meta Title and Meta Description so as to make every post SEO friendly.

Optimizing the Images

Search engines have algorithms that analyze content as per the defined factors and then rank the content accordingly. This is why it is quintessential to optimize the images by using proper Alt Tags.

No need to worry about coding as and when you upload any image, you just have to enter the details like Title, Alt tag, Description and Caption to the images.

This in one of the best place to insert the relevant keywords, but don’t overdo it.

Captions will be visible to the reader, hence handle with care. It contributes less to the SEO and has very large impact on the reader.

Optimizing with Rich Snippets

In the above discussion, I told you that you get three things in the Search Results – Title, Landing Page and Description. You must have seen photos of author, phone numbers, videos, site links, customer reviews and ratings and so on.

What are these?

These are the Rich Snippets, which enhances the user experience.

This Feature will make your Result Page more interesting and clickable.

You just have to Install a Rich Snippets Plugin and make desired changes. You can preview your result and add image, video, reviews or may be call to action and attract the user to click your page. You don’t have to have the knowledge of coding to do this.

Because of its popularity and craze worldwide, Word Press is one of the biggest targets for the malicious hackers. Thus, securing your website becomes indispensable for you.

From Word Press theme to Plugins, databases or file permissions, all are susceptible to hackers.

A secured website is not only safe for you but give a positive impression to the search engines. Search engines will rank you well as compared to your competitor with unsecure website.

7. Backing up your website is a must

Just think, if all your content, leads, SEO and everything you did for your website, disappears or crashes all of a sudden.

A Nightmare Right!!

Thus, taking the backup will help you rest assured.

Investing few bucks on taking the backup is worth it. Just buy and install the backup buddy plugin and stay tension free.

8. SiteMap.xml submission for better Indexing

When you want all the pages and posts to be accessible to the users, then you have to tell all the search engines about all the pages or may be important pages that exist on your website.

An XML Sitemap helps you to do so.

First you have to generate the sitemaps and then submit it to Google and other search engine webmaster tool.

Though this will not help you rank your website but this will certainly help search engines crawl your pages better.

As you have already installed Yoast SEO, go to XML SiteMap then Enable XML Sitemap functionality and save changes. Now click XML Sitemap.

It will take you to your XML SiteMap

Sitemap for your website is generated and you have to submit it (sitemap_index.xml) in the webmaster tool. When you login to you webmaster tool you will see such page.

You just have to enter the sitemap_index.xml (you get this when you create sitemap on your website) in the box to submit sitemap.

That’s all; same process will be followed for Sitemap submission for all the search engines.

If you want to search the number of pages indexed by Google, Just Enter in the search bar:

Site: yoursitename.com and you will find the number of pages indexed by Google.

You can also see when a particular page was crawled by Google by clicking on the down arrow highlighted in the above image and click cached.

You will get this page when you click on cached and here you can see the date and time when Google crawled your website.

Control Crawling with Robot.txt

By default, search engines crawl and fetch all pages of your website. Robot.txt will help you restrict or disallow Google’s access to a particular page.

In Word Press it’s very simple. Whenever you write a post, just scroll down and you will find:

Go to advanced setting, you will find Meta Robots Follow. By default follow is checked, you can check no follow, as required.

Now click the drop down and select Index or no index as required.

Contact Forms Must Be Secured

It’s very important for you to secure your contact forms with CAPTCHA. By doing this you will save your website from hackers and spammers. Unsecure forms can flood your website with unlimited comments and consume unnecessary disc space and thereby slow down your website.

As a beginner, if you follow these 10 guidelines properly, then you can get much better ranking on SERP (Search Engine Result Page), then you expect. Just the game of few plugins and attention to details can serve the purpose. Go ahead and make changes right now.

Driving quality and relevant traffic to the website is the prerequisite for converting prospective leads into customers. Social Media not only plays a very significant role in this conversion process but also forms the most important pillar in the digital marketing process.

The sales funnel starts from attracting the people to the website which is followed by converting these visitors into leads and then closing the deal to make them your customer. But the story doesn’t end here. If these customers are delighted with your product or services then they will play a major role in promoting your brand.

Let’s understand each phase and the tools used to implement them.

Attract

The goal is not to drive huge irrelevant traffic but quality traffic that will generate effective leads. By driving relevant traffic, you can increase the chances of getting customers for your product or service. So, when you aim at attracting people to you website, your content must target the right poeple. Focus on developing the digital marketing strategy to define the needs and requirements of your prospective buyers.

SEO:

When you want to buy something online, what do you do? You probably search it on Google or other search engines. So, when your prospective customer searches for the product or service you offer, your page rank on the SERP plays a very significant role in turning your business into success or failure. Thus, you need to cautiously do keyword research, develop content and add links to optimize your pages.

Blogs:

A blog with catchy heading will attract people to your website. Proper market research will help you understand the needs of your target group of people. Then develop blogs according to their requirements. The content theme needs to be something relevant to the target audience and it should be informative. You also need to figure out the perfect balance between original and curated content. Even if you use information from other sources as inspiration, make sure that you add your views and opinions to make it relevant to your audience. A quality blog will prove to be powerful tool in conversion process.

Webpages:

Your webpages should not only be optimized but also be appealing to the visitors. Once they reach your website they must not switch just because of the ugly look of your webpages. Develop professional looking webpages, with easy user interface that can hold the interest of the viewers. There are several factors which determine the appeal of a website including loading time, navigation, user friendliness, graphic-text ration, communication of brand message and value to the customer.

Social Media Marketing:

Once your website is ready to welcome your prospective customers, you must focus on bringing the content in front of your target audience. Social Media is omnipresent; hence the best platform to present your business in front of the world and filter our prospective customers through focused content. Appropriate research will help you understand which social media platform to target and how to target. Don’t forget that your social media page will determine your brand image. Hence, keep it simple but effective. Add valuable information, engage audience and respond to their questions. This will help you develop personal relation with the audience of your interest. Treat your brand as a person and work on creating an identity just like you would do with your social profile. Moreover, get acquainted with new platforms and try to reach out to your audience on the profiles that they are most active on.

CONVERT

For converting the visitors into leads, you need to get the contact information of the people in order to engage with them. To share their personal details, they would expect something valuable in return in the form of eBooks on the topics of their interest. If your offer is too good or if you offer a solution to a specific problem, you might be able to get the attention of even more people. Just use simple forms to get the required information and keep it easy for the users. No one likes to fill out lengthy forms with elaborate details as it is pretty time consuming and tedious.

Calls to action:

You must encourage call to action using buttons or links which ask them to download or start a new course to generate leads.

Landing Page:

The visitor should not regret sharing his information with you when he reaches the landing page. This is possible only if you satisfy their requirement by giving a valuable content in return. This will develop trust and help you in the next phase of sales funnel.

Forms:

The process of filling the form must be short and easy. Keep track of the contacts you gather to help you in future interaction.

Publish useful content and call to action links on Social media on regular basis so as to enhance your customer experience, thereby developing trust and maintaining positive relationship.

CLOSE

You have put in all the efforts just to reach this stage. Thus, this stage is very crucial to you. You can use the following tools to ensure that you don’t fail at this stage.

Automated Marketing:

Manually sending emails to the leads according to their stage in the sales funnel is next to impossible. Hence, Marketing Automation will do that for you by keeping all the factors into consideration like the stage of lead, social media platform used for interaction and so on. You can change the message according to the requirement and a series of emails having useful information automatically.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM):

It can easily track all the contact information in few clicks and help in giving them right information the right time. You can integrate it with closed loop reporting and analyze various factors affecting the closing process viz. which marketing efforts is generating maximum leads and so on.

Social Media Marketing:

If the lead decides to buy the product, audience engagement play important role. The customer will make payment if you are able to hold the trust. Social Media and Email Marketing will permit you to sell and increase your revenue.

DELIGHT

Once you close the deal it becomes your responsibility to retain the customer for repeat sales. This is possible when you are able to delight them by continuing your engagement process. This will also help you get new customers by word of mouth publicity from them. Various tools used to delight the customers are:

Smart text and smart call to action:

By giving attractive offers to the existing buyers and delighting them with useful content, you can introduce new products to them and increase revenue.

Monitoring Social Media:

It is very important to analyze the consumer behavior on the basis of their social conversation, comments, and questions and accordingly provide relevant content.

This is how you can take advantage of the social media platforms to showcase your company as an approachable and reliable brand.

Remember that you must develop different strategies for different social media platform and combine the elements into a concrete digital marketing strategy, which can be used at all the stages of sales funnel. In the end, it’s all about understanding your target audience and taking your brand to them. The more you understand your audience, the greater will be the sales prospect.

If a picture can speak thousand words, then a GIF will probably speak a million words, for sure.

GIFs are hybrids of a static image and a video. These days GIFs are becoming popular because of their ability to enhance the quality of the message to be communicated by a brand and hence meet audience’s expectation from the content. Whether it is an animated presentation or a particular scene which conveys the information in a better manner, GIFs can really send the message across in an effective manner. This is why most marketers are including GIFs in their Digital marketing strategies. Continue reading →

Visual content marketing is in limelight these days, because of its power to drive enormous traffic. The significance of visual content has been highlighted in the last few years because of the popularity of major social networks including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. It is not a hidden fact that videos and infographics are effective in conveying information and drawing attention of the readers. Thus, it becomes essential for you to keep pace with these upcoming trends.

For the non-technical marketers who don’t have the knowledge of coding or graphic designing, there are many tools which are available creating images, videos and info graphics, charts and presentations to support their content. Thanks to these tools, most social media marketing experts are able to work their way around images and graphic designs without relying a lot on graphic designers. Continue reading →

Managing a small business or a startup can be quite stressful, especially if it is a new startup. Small business owners have to use time, money and resources very carefully. It is very unlikely that a new startup will have the required financial strength, resources and the time to promote their business on a large scale. This is why they turn to social media marketing to reach out to the target consumers and engage with them on platforms where they are most active.